Democrats Want Their Party to Rethink Its Southern Strategy

Sen. Raphael Warnock of Georgia wants the Democratic Party to take the midterm results as “proof of concept” that it needs to upend its approach to the South.

“In the past, the party would invest in places like Mississippi just enough to force the Republicans to spend money,” Warnock told The Washington Sun on Friday. “Same thing in Texas, same thing in South Carolina, same thing in Georgia. Until we began to win.”

There was one meeting where donors laughed at Warnock as he urged them to pay attention to Democrat Scott Colom’s Senate campaign in Mississippi. By Friday afternoon, Colom was leading Mississippi Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith by about 2,000 votes.

“I think Mississippi got the last laugh Tuesday night,” Warnock said.

He added that the results show that Democrats actually need to “play to win” in races.

Across the Deep South, Democrats either came close to upset wins or actually pulled them off. That includes races like Colom’s, or Angie Nixon’s Senate race in Florida, in which she came within three percentage points of Republican Sen. Ashley Moody. In South Carolina, North Carolina and Georgia, Democrats flipped Senate seats or made gains in statewide offices.

Those performances provide fuel to the argument many Southern Democrats, including Warnock, have made for years — that national Democrats need to invest more in the South.

In the Trump era, Democrats have tended to focus on shoring up Rust Belt states in the upper Midwest. But they are now reckoning with the South’s growing importance for control of Congress and the electoral college.

“If there’s real interest in expanding the party from the national level to states, then the ideal area to look in would be the South,” said Mississippi Rep. Bennie Thompson, the state’s only Democratic lawmaker.

While Democrats were celebrating upsets elsewhere, in Tennessee, state Rep. Justin Pearson found himself on the outside looking in.

In a new House district drawn to heavily favor Republicans, Pearson lost his congressional bid by only 1 percentage point.

His district wasn’t included on the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee’s “Red to Blue” list until October, a late add to the priority list that allowed him to tap into additional resources.

“Early money matters,” Pearson told The Washington Sun. “We need earlier investments to build the infrastructure that we need longer term. … The South is the future of the country, and we need to start investing in it like it is.”

Pearson said national Democrats have allowed democracy to “wither on a vine in the South.”

“Had [campaign infrastructure] already been there, it would have created so much opportunity for Democrats already in the South,” Pearson said. “There’s a paradigm shift happening and a deep recognition that there’s no way to House majorities, Senate majorities without the South.”

Tuesday’s historic, coast-to-coast drubbing by Democrats is prompting many of them to reassess their assumptions about which states are worth competing in, upending conventional wisdom that a polarized electorate limits the map to a few key swing states.

“The lesson we should take from this is that when we have good candidates and we invest, we can win anywhere,” said Amy Morton, a Georgia-based strategist who leads the consulting firm Southern Majority.

National Democrats did spend in South Carolina and Mississippi’s Senate races. In late October, Senate Majority PAC, aligned with Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, put at least $1.2 million into Mississippi and $750,000 into South Carolina while the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee put at least $500,000 into both states.

After the Supreme Court’s Louisiana v. Callais ruling further neutered the Voting Rights Act, the Democratic National Committee created a Southern States Resource Hub to provide Southern state parties with support on staffing, messaging, fundraising and data infrastructure.

“We will continue to invest in the South while doubling down on our proven work to build the infrastructure necessary to win in 2028 and beyond,” DNC Chair Ken Martin said in a statement.

The DNC also started sending more money to state parties last year. Every party gets $17,500 monthly, with red states like South Carolina getting an extra $5,000.

Bobby Kahn, a veteran Georgia Democratic operative and former chair of the state party, said financial support for the state parties is crucial when openings present themselves in unexpected places.

“I get the need to set priorities. … it is a tough balancing act,” Kahn said. “But I will tell you this: With the kind of money that is in politics now, even on the Democratic side, that’s a good thing to do, and I think the system can afford it.”

South Carolina state party officials, where Annie Andrews flipped a Senate seat, said they were grateful for the support they got from Senate Majority PAC and the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee but touted the work of their candidates and volunteers for making the races competitive enough to attract that last-minute spending flurry in the first place.

“It’s more than we’ve ever gotten, and it has also been extremely helpful for us,” Christale Spain, chair of the South Carolina Democratic Party, told reporters on a press call.

Spain added that the Senate victory provides a “tremendous opportunity” to strengthen the state’s position in the Democratic Party.

Asked on the same call about how the state party would deploy additional resources from national groups, Jay Parmley, the executive director of the South Carolina Democratic Party, said he would like to expand into year-round organizing.

“I think that’s really where we have seen Democrats do well in the South, where they’ve had that kind of investment and that kind of attention,” Parmley said.

In Georgia, national money has been sloshing around since former President Joe Biden, Warnock and Sen. Jon Ossoff proved it was competitive again in 2020. Georgia Democratic Party Chair Charlie Bailey predicted that national party groups will increase their investments in other states in the South after Tuesday’s results.

“Mississippi, South Carolina. I mean, this shows that you can win,” Bailey said on a press call with reporters. “We can win in the South, and we got to have the right candidates. We got to have the right message. We got to have the money to build the organizing.”